Hi, Everybody!
Let's do this:
19 October 14
Dear Troy & Mia; David & Marie:
Ezekiel 39
Therefore thou son of man, prophecy against
Gog and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; behold, I against thee, O Gog, the chief
prince of Meshech & Tubal
Again -- as I said last week -- the YHWH
could be forgiven for thinking him/her/its self secure and at ease as Lord GOD
reiterates His judgement upon Gog. At
the Elevated Levels of the discussion, God is as much a part of Gog as is the
YHWH. So God's opposition to Gog
constitutes a self-negating denunciation.
God, as the YHWH would infer it, is opposing Himself.
And I will turn thee back and [strike thee with
six plagues; leave but the sixth part of thee; draw thee back with a hook of
six teeth] and will cause thee to come up from the sides of the North parts,
and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel:
I found this interesting on multiple
levels. I can't recall, offhand, any
other passages in the Torah that have three different translations in the
KJV. It also appears to prefigure the
Beast 666 (with the triple six reference) "the number of a man" in
Revelations 13:18 (18 also being three sixes).
"The sixth part" I would infer as God referring to Himself and
His portion "in Gog". Six
being composed of two threes. So you
have YHWH, he, she, it -- three parts -- and God Who doesn't have a "she
aspect" or an "it aspect" -- one aspect of the other three parts
or "the sixth part".
It's another inversion, as well, of the Job
judgement upon Leviathan (the Garden of Eden entirely mythic serpent
"scaled up" to unimaginable aquatic size). It would usually be inferred that God would
be turning back YHWH/Leviathan from wreaking destruction upon Israel. But, in this passage, God is turning
YHWH/Leviathan back from Meschech & Tubal (Assyria) TOWARDS the mountains
of Israel.
Definitely, what is promised, is a
thoroughgoing destruction (as I read it, of the YHWH):
And I will smite thy bow out of thy left
hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand
Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of
Israel, thou & all thy bands, and the people that with thee: I will give
thee unto the ravenous birds of every wing and to the beasts of the field [to devour/to be
devoured]
Thou shalt fall upon the face of the field,
for I have spoken, saith the Lord GOD.
The YHWH, as I read it, infers differently,
while offering concurrence:
And I will send a fire on Magog and among
them that dwell [carelessly/confidently]
in the isles, and they shall know that I,
the YHWH
So will I make my holy name known in the
midst of my people Israel, and I will not let pollute my holy name any more,
and the heathen shall know that I, the YHWH, the holy one in Israel.
That is, the YHWH's inference is that the
destruction of Gog will constitute a mutual destruction of God and YHWH. So the YHWH pronounces a doom -- by fire, the
YHWH's medium -- upon Magog AND among them that "dwell…in the isles". What the YHWH is establishing, as I read it,
is that the YHWH is aware of the Larger Context that is not being discussed --
"the isles" usually refer to distant Mediterranean nation-states,
like Greece -- in addition to the context that is being discussed: Meshech and Tubal (the immediately-northward-of-Israel
then-geopolitical context of Assyria).
The YHWH, I would guess, was surprised to
find no resistance or qualification of this judgement on the part of Lord GOD
(God):
Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith
the Lord GOD, this the day whereof I have spoken.
And they that dwell in the cities of
Israel, shall go forth, and shall set on fire, and burn the weapons, both the
shields and the bucklers, the bows and the arrows and the [javelins/hand
staves and the spears] and they shall burn them with fire, seven years.
This is reiterative of the recurring
"seven seven" motif (the opposite of one sixth: the YHWH's inference
that both the YHWH and God are "he she it"s -- totalling six -- but
with one having preeminence: the hidden
seventh. And, to the YHWH, that that total construct exists on both sides: "seven seven" (the number of clean
beasts that the YHWH instructed Noah to take into the ark, being the earliest
literal expression of the concept in the Torah:
the year of Jubilee, 49 years "seven seven", etc.).
What God is promising is that not only will
there be fire in the destruction of Magog, but it will be powered by the
burning of wooden weapons. So many
wooden weapons that, for God's promised term of seven years, Israel won't have
to cut down any trees to fuel their fires.
THAT's how many weapons they will have to burn:
So that they shall take no wood out of the
field, neither cut down out of the forests: for they shall burn the weapons
with fire, and they shall spoil those that spoiled them, and rob those that
robbed them, saith the Lord GOD.
And while the YHWH is still mulling THAT
one over, God adds:
And it shall come to pass at that day, I
will give unto Gog a place there of graves in Israel, the valley of the
passengers on the East of the sea and it shall stop the [interpolated:
noses/mouths of the] passengers and there shall they bury Gog, and all his
multitude, and they shall call the valley of Hamon-gog [translation: the
multitude of Gog]
As I read it, it's a pretty esoteric
reference intended only for the YHWH's Larger Context awareness. The KJV interpolates "noses" and,
in the marginal note, "mouths" because the passage doesn't seem to
make sense otherwise. To me, it makes
sense because I read it as a reference to the Garden of Eden and the YHWH's
"Cherubims and a flaming sword" (Genesis 3:24). The "passengers" are those who
inhabited the land "on the East of Eden" (4:16) and who attempted,
accidentally or intentionally, to enter the Garden of Eden after they were
expelled by the YHWH -- that is, men -- and were cut to pieces by the
sword.
That is, as I read it, God is saying that
He's aware of the Larger Context to a greater extent than the YHWH could even
imagine and that what He is including in the Context of His own judgement is
ALL aspects of the YHWH, all corruptions, all inversions, all misnaming, all
artful fancies -- which are encompassed by the Larger Context of "the
multitude of Gog".
And seven months shall the house of Israel
be burying of them, that they may cleanse the land.
Yea, all the people of the land shall bury,
and it shall be to them a renown the day that I shall be glorified saith the
Lord GOD.
It's an open question as to whether this
has already taken place. I would infer
that it has, with the founding of the nation of Israel in 1948, but that it has
taken place in the same sense that the invasion "from the sides of the
north" -- Assyria -- was only a small-scale iteration of the invasion by
Babylon, in turn a small-scale iteration of the invasion by Rome. The "multitude of Gog" are still
with us but, as I read it, there does come an end point when and where ALL the
multitude of Gog -- all of the pagan and heathen and monotheistic corruptions
exemplified by the YHWH -- will have an end.
And they shall sever out [men of
continuance/men of continual employment] passing through the land, to bury
with the passengers those that remain upon the face of the earth to cleanse it:
after the end of seven months shall they search.
And the passengers pass through the land,
when seeth a man's bone, then shall he build a sign by it, till the buriers
have buried it in the valley of Hamon-gog.
It's pretty subtle stuff -- maybe something
I'm just "reading into" the text -- but I see, again, this reference
to "the passengers" as being to anyone crossing into the former
location of the Garden of Eden, now called the Promised Land, Israel. The "men of continuance/men of continual
employment" I see as the Cherubims, presumably the only masculine entities
allowed to remain in the Garden of Eden ("men of continuance") and
always engaged in the task of executing any man who attempted to be a
"passenger" into the Garden of Eden ("men of continual
employ").
Basically, men who capitulated to the YHWH,
as Hebel did.
"A man's bone" I read as A Dam's
rib, from which God "builded" a woman. I read also that men will be
aware of the actual history "in those days" so any man's bone found
at the entering in of Israel, will be honoured as at least possibly an executed
would-be "passenger" -- "then shall he build a sign by it"
has the double meaning of this commemoration that will be performed but also in
the sense that God built this epoch's first woman from a man's bone as a
sign/enactment of the relationship between God and YHWH.
From there, as I read it, God arrives at
the YHWH's judgement upon Magog, incorporating that into this own narrative
with a female form of Hamon -- that is, the multitude that will be buried in
the valley of Hamon-gog won't just be men, they'll be women as well:
And also the name of the city Hamonah: thus
shall they cleanse the land.
And thou, son of man, Thus saith the Lord
GOD, speak unto [every
feathered fowl/to the fowl of every wing] and to every beast of the field,
Assemble yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you,
a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh and drink
blood.
The YHWH's head must have been spinning at
this point. EAT FLESH AND DRINK
BLOOD? That's completely pagan: the
YHWHistic corruption writ large! Why
would God be promising pagan observance as a capstone to His prophecy? Presumably, since -- in promising that the
multitude of Gog and Magog, Meschech and Tubal, Hamon and Hamonah will be
destroyed -- the whole point is to eliminate blood sacrifice.
Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty and
drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of the rams, of lambs and of great
goats, of bullocks, all of them fatlings of Bashan.
Not only that, God appears to promise
outright cannibalism -- and not of cast-off or marginalized human beings, but
"of the mighty" "the princes of the earth". WHAT?
How is that even possible? What
society would permit its "mighty" and its "princes" to be
cannibalized? And, putting as fine a
point on it as possible, God adds:
And ye shall eat fat till ye be full and
drink blood till ye be drunken, of my sacrifice which I have sacrificed for
you.
Thus shall ye be filled at my table with
horses and chariots, with mighty men, and with all men of war, saith the Lord
GOD.
As I read it, to what God is actually
referring is the fulfillment he intends through His Christ, the Johannine Jesus
as documented in John 6:48-58:
I am the bread of the life; the fathers of
you ate in the desolate the manna and they died; this is the bread the ___ out
of the heaven coming down in order that anyone out of it should eat and not he
should die; I am the bread the living, the ____ out of the heaven coming down
in order that anyone out of it should eat and not he should die; I am the bread
the living, the ____ out of the heaven having come down; if ever anyone should
eat out of this the bread he will live into the age, and the bread (however
____) which I shall give, the flesh of me is over the of the world life.
As I read it, it's a seminal point in the
history of our planet. It's a physically
incarnated being, a flesh and blood man, but he's conveying an unprecedented
spiritual truth: that he, himself, is
spiritual food. Basically: go ahead,
take a bite.
The physically-incarnated reaction -- the
reaction of men -- is predictable:
Were fighting therefore toward one another
the Jews saying, How is able this ___ to us to give the flesh of him to eat?
The key is in the missing noun: "this ____". The physically incarnated Jews can only see a
man and that's what they're referring to by "this ____". But to their spirits, "this ____"
is the noun missing from his own assertions.
"the ____ out of the heaven having come down". A "___" descended from heaven is
consumable! That's where the fighting
comes from. The physically-incarnated,
the ones completely detached from their spirits, hear only an abhorrent
concept: cannibalism -- their reaction is the same as the YHWH's to Lord GOD's
assertion in Ezekiel: "WHAT?" But the spirit-centred clamour towards
him. Can you really eat his spiritual
flesh? And, presumably, yes, you could. And, presumably, yes they did. And this was
just the origin point of the enactment/ritual/incarnation. In contemplating its pursuance over the
ensuing two millennia, the prophecy in Ezekiel becomes an understatement:
And ye shall eat fat till ye be full and
drink blood till ye be drunken, of my sacrifice which I have sacrificed for
you.
Still, at the time, you want to talk about
a "tough sell":
Said therefore to them the Jesus Amen amen
I am saying to you, if ever not you should eat the flesh of the son of the man
and you should drink of him the blood, not you are having life in selves.
For the YHWH, this really would have been
Too Much. Watching on the spirit level
as the spirits of the "ears to hear" Jews begin tearing off pieces of
the Johannine Jesus spirit and devouring them.
And in the midst of that, the Johannine Jesus is told to give a plug to
the "son of man" -- the YHWH's Christ. God saying, "Yes it will work for you,
too. The Jews are consuming My
Christ. They can consume yours, YHWH, as
well."
The ___ munching of me the flesh and
drinking of me the blood is having life everlasting, and I shall resurrect him
to the last day; the for flesh of me true is food and the blood of me true is
drink. The ___ munching of me the flesh
and drinking of me the blood in me is remaining and I in him. According as sent for me the living Father
and I am living through the Father, and the ___ munching me also that ___ will
live through me. This is the bread, the
____ out of heaven having come down, not according as ate the fathers and they
died; the ___ munching this the bread will live into the age.
This followed by the deadpan assertion:
These ____s he said in synagogue teaching
in Capernaum.
Not only does he counsel cannibalism, with
himself as object, he does so in the middle of a synagogue when he's supposed
to be teaching a lesson. It must have
been absolute Bedlam: the "no ears
to hear" Jews livid and raging against this unimaginable blasphemy and
heresy -- and the "ears to hear" Jews, suddenly ecstatic and
incandescent with joy as their spirits took their first bites of the "___
out of heaven having come down".
Flash forward to the decimated ranks of his
followers in the immediate aftermath of his synagogue teaching:
Many therefore having heard out of the
disciples of him said, Hard is the word this; who is able of it to be
hearing?
Their anguish must have been palpable. Up to that point, they just took what the
Johannine Jesus said and dutifully passed it on. Their ranks, presumably, swelling with new
followers and proselytizers. Now they were faced with, "How can I tell
people to do this when it makes me gag just to think of it? Eating the flesh of the teacher and drinking
his blood."
Having known ____ (however the____, Jesus)
in himself that are murmuring about this the disciples of him, he said to them,
This you is stumbling?
Now, there's an understatement of a
question. But, of course, for the Johannine Jesus it was an elevating
moment. His serenity, like their
anguish, must have been palpable.
"So this is what the end of the discussion in Ezekiel was
about." Wondering, as all the
prophets must have, at what God had wrought.
How amazing it all was! How it
all fit together! His own crystal
clarity issuing from his proximity to the Father in that moment -- not to God,
but to the Father, still quantum levels above himself, spiritually -- would
have allowed him to look at his anguished disciples and see, in their faces,
either the face of God or the face of the YHWH.
And he is able to address the YHWH
directly, recognizing the ambivalence.
Dare the YHWH instruct the Synoptic Jesus to give a similar teaching? The ranks of the Johannine Jesus' followers
were DECIMATED. People were RAGING
against him.
The Johannine Jesus alludes to the ultimate
future, again, directly to the YHWH:
If ever therefore you may behold the son of
the man ascending where he was the former?
It would have been inescapably irritating,
the more so because it's so quietly and simply observed. The Johannine Jesus had clearly jumped up
multiple levels with a single teaching.
The Synoptic Jesus who had been MORE than matching him miracle for
miracle and follower for follower was suddenly WAY down in the pecking
order. Way down in terms of followers
and popularity, but way up in terms of spiritual elevation.
Don't you WANT to see your Christ ascend as
Mine just did?
The Johannine Jesus, with perfect serenity,
is able to continue his gentle chiding of the YHWH while also imparting Great
Truth to his disciples:
The spirit is the ___ making alive, the
flesh not is benefiting nothing
It's certainly a novel idea for the
physically-incarnated and also a novel idea for the YHWH. There is physical flesh AND spiritual
flesh. Who knew? And yet it made sense. The YHWH could see
that the Johannine Jesus was intact physically but elevated spiritually even as
his spiritual flesh had started to be consumed.
Like the Johannine Jesus, the YHWH would have been Wondering at it. So THIS is what God had meant in Ezekiel's
day when he said:
And ye shall eat fat till ye be full and
drink blood till ye be drunken, of my sacrifice which I have sacrificed for
you.
Which permits God, through the Johannine
Jesus, to drive home the point:
The sayings which I have spoken to you
spirit is and life is; but are out of you some who not are believing.
It casts the YHWH in an unfamiliar and
uncomfortable role as Hamon -- the multitude.
Way back in the middle of the pack, well behind the True Believers like
the Apostle John. Like the followers of the Johannine Jesus who are listening
to him, the average blokes, the YHWH is tilting one way and the other. There is the reality of what has happened --
that's irrefutable -- but there's also the awareness of cannibalism. How can you COUNSEL the commission of
cannibalism? There are indeed
"some" out of the YHWH's multitude of incarnations that just can't
accept what the YHWH his/her/its self has seen.
The Apostle John inserts a narrative
observation into the profound disquietude:
Had known for, out of beginning, the ____
(Jesus) which ones are the ___s not believing and who is the ___ being about to
give beside him.
He personalizes it, in other words. He was
one of the Jews with "ears to hear", he has consumed the spiritual
flesh and is sharing in the Johannine Jesus' sudden spiritual escalation. But he can look at Judas Iscariot and see
that he doesn't have "ears to hear".
Judas is, obviously, barely able to suppress his rage and his repugnance
at the teaching.
The Johannine Jesus adds:
Through this I have said to you that no one
is able to come toward me if ever not it may be having been given to him out of
the Father.
The YHWH would have been aware that the
Father was a lesser construct/entity -- certainly far above the Johannine
Jesus, but also far below God. But, to
the YHWH, a construct/entity over which the YHWH was also preeminent. Basically
God is putting the YHWH in his/her/its place.
"It wasn't given to you out of the Father to accept this
teaching…but, look around, there are simple men here listening to me -- men you
don't even think of as the dirt beneath your feet, YHWH, who HAVE had that
awareness and that access 'given to him out of the Father.'"
It's not reassuring enough to hold
anyone. On the contrary, if you didn't
"get it", hearing the Johannine Jesus address the YHWH, all it would
have done was to confirm that if you didn't "get it" -- if you hadn't
experienced the spiritual cannibalism and you were looking for reassurance or,
at least, an explanation -- you weren't getting it. Either get out there and tell people to eat
the flesh of the Johannine Jesus and drink his blood…or…do something else.
The crowd melts away.
Out of this many out of the disciples of
him went off into the behind and not yet with him they were walking about.
The "not yet" is
significant. God is aware and I would
assume the Johannine Jesus was aware that it was a temporary setback. Even if his listeners were "physical- dominant"
they still had spirits. The spirits saw
what had happened in the realm of spirit when the "spirit dominant"
had started munching the spiritual flesh of the Johannine Jesus. It would certainly compel a certain
"physical-dominant assertiveness" to stay completely away after that. "The spirit is the ___ making alive, the
flesh not is benefitting nothing".
So, why let your flesh dominate the decision-making? But you would
probably need a lot of time alone to let your spirit and physical selves sort
it out between them.
Said therefore the ___ (Jesus) to the
twelve, Not also you are willing to be going under?
And, again, as the Apostle John asserted,
it's a rhetorical question. He could
look at the twelve and just by the expressions on their faces know whether they
had ears to hear or not. The "going
under" would have multiple meanings.
"To go away", to "go to the YHWH", "to go to
hell", but also "to accept submission to God, to be Under God and
Under the Father" -- which, clearly, is unacceptable to the YHWH.
Answered to him Simon Peter, Lord, toward
whom shall we go off? Sayings of life
everlasting you are having, and we have believed and we have known that you are
the Holy ____ of the God.
Simon Peter, of course, is (if you'll
pardon the expression) the "rolling stone" who oscillates between the
Johannine Jesus and the Synoptic Jesus.
The fact that he's the one who POSES the question BEGS the
question: the Johannine Jesus has
"sayings of life" -- but the Synoptic Jesus is the great miracle worker
and the one who has told Peter that he will be the rock upon which he, the
Synoptic Jesus, will found his church.
He's obliquely presenting to the other disciples -- some of whom the
Synoptic Jesus and Johannine Jesus share and some of whom are the Johannine
Jesus' alone -- "maybe we should ditch the cannibalism advocate and go
with the miracle healer."
[The YHWH, with a far greater overview than
the average human being, still needed, in an unaccustomed human way, to mull
the whole thing over for some time. And,
even then, as I read it, hedged his/her/its bets by having the Synoptic Jesus
wait until the Last Supper to invoke the "eating of my flesh/drinking of
my blood" teaching -- that is, waiting until the last minute and limited
the teaching only to the twelve disciples -- I would infer, as a means of
avoiding the decimating of the ranks of the followers that the Johannine Jesus'
open and public -- in a synagogue, no less! -- teaching had created]
Nothing the Johannine Jesus isn't aware of:
Answered to them the Jesus, Not I you the
twelve I chose? And out of you one devil
is.
The Apostle John interjects:
He was saying, however, the Judas of Simon
Iscariot; this for was about to be giving beside him, one out of the
twelve.
I'm pretty sure that isn't what he was
saying. What he was saying was that --
as he looked at the faces around him, including, I think, Simon Peter -- he was
seeing the YHWH -- the devil -- in varying degrees. Probably in the least in the face of the
Apostle of John, probably in the most in the face of Judas of Simon
Iscariot. But I don't think the "of
Simon" is in there by accident.
Taken together, there was still one devil in back of the disciples.
This -- ALL this -- I would guess was what
God was looking at as an omniscient being, in Ezekiel's day, as the YHWH
confirmed that he/she/it was "along for the ride" -- and eager to see
where this sacrificial flesh and fat eating and blood drinking to complete
satiation was going to lead and be incarnated (and how could it not be to the
benefit of the YHWH?):
And I will set my glory among the heathen,
and all the heathen shall see my judgement that I have executed, and my hands
that I have laid upon them.
So the house of Israel shall know that I,
the YHWH, their God, from that day and forward.
And the heathen shall know that the house of
Israel went into captivity for their iniquity: because they trespassed against
me, therefore hid I my face from them, and gave them into the hand of their
enemies; so fell they all by the sword.
According to their uncleanness and
according to their transgressions have I done unto them and hid my face from
them.
That's really all the YHWH has to say about
Lord GOD's assertions. So, the Lord GOD
-- God -- reiterates the YHWH's concluding thoughts, while aware that the YHWH
has NO idea how all of this will actually hatch out:
Therefore, thus saith the Lord GOD, Now
will I bring again the captivity of Jacob, and have mercy upon the whole house
of Israel and will be jealous for my holy name
After that they have borne their shame and
all their trespasses, whereby they have trespassed against me, when they dwelt
safely in their land, and none made afraid.
When I have brought them again from the
people, and gathered them out of their enemies' lands, and am sanctified in
them in the sight of many nations:
God leaves the "prompt" hanging
and the YHWH obliges:
Then shall know that I the YHWH their God [by my causing of
them/which caused them] to be led into captivity among the heathen: but I
have gathered them unto their own land and have left none of them any more
there.
And God seals the agreement with:
Neither will I hide my face any more from
them: for I have poured out my spirit upon the house of Israel, saith the Lord
GOD.
Next week, God willing, Ezekiel 40.
Best,
Dave
Next Time: Whatever it is we do on Mondays in the future. Is "BladeRunning" a thing yet? -"Past" Matt
